The Military Academy of the Russian General Staff has held a conference on Islamism and national security attended by officials of the Defense Ministry, Interior Ministry and military officials, ITAR-TASS reports.
Russian Army General Anatoly Kulikov, President of the Club of Miliary Chiefs, said that Muslim confessions appear in 55 regions of Russia. There were only 27 mosques in Russia in 1989. Their numbers increased 72-fold in the past 20 years. Over 2,000 mosques can be seen in Dagestan, over 1,100 in Tatarstan, 470 in Bashkiria, 465 in Chechnya and 300 in Ingushetia.
Attendants of the conference recommended the Russian Security Council to monitor relations between religions, develop a program to fight radical Islam based on the president’s decree on strategic state national policy until 2025 (signed on December 19, 2012) and a complex plan to fight information terrorism in 2013-2018.
Participants of the conference proposed legislative amendments to fight radical Islam in the North Caucasus and Volga area. They want formation of the Ministry for Nationalities and Confessions and opening of theological faculties at universities.
